Permission
by a-closet-fan
Summary: The decision to leave everything you know comes in many ways and so does saying goodbye. (Slight Blues) (Oneshot)


A/N: Fixed up an old drabble! I'm trying to work on characterization without outright naming personality traits, so I hope they come across well for you. Enjoy!

* * *

Boomer sunk lower into his blankets and then threw them over his head. Quickly, underneath became uncomfortably warm and the air soured, but stubbornly he stayed. Maybe if he was lucky the air would run out and he wouldn't have to feel like this anymore!

With a huff, he flipped the covers back off his head and flopped around trying to get comfortable in the frumpy, disgusting bed they had picked up off the side of the road, which was still better than the shit in prison. They, meaning him and his brothers, were laying low right now, so they had set up shop in an abandon apartment building on the bad side of town. Not that anything bad would touch them, they were probably the worst pieces of slime in the area.

No one else was in the building, so for the past few days they had just meandered from complex to complex picking through the trash that had been left behind. It had been storming off and on for the past few days pretty bad because of some tropical storm coming off the ocean, so if he wanted to go out it would probably be for nothing.

Laying low meant he couldn't just break into stores to get a snack and the storm meant everything was probably boarded up. Not like he wanted to even go out anyway. He never wanted to do anything again. Ever. And his heart sunk when he remembered why.

 _Don't fucking cry pussy._

He threw an arm over his face pressing hard against his eyes.

Him and his brothers did _not_ cry. They weren't supposed to and it wasn't like he was a kid anymore, so there really was no excuse. He was a bad guy, a super powered villain, it'd be super fucking dumb if he cried over something that wasn't ever actually going to happen.

He sat up in his bed, as his continued to rub at his eyes that weren't watering at alland reached into his pillow case pulling out the various, crinkly paper clippings he had acquired over the years. He had a pile of new and old pictures from newspapers and magazines, really anything he could get his hands on that depicted the stuff he liked.

There were a few cars and other various material items from over the years that he had wanted and had gotten, but he got bored of those things quickly. Those pictures were the decoys, just in case his brothers ever felt like snooping around. Folded nicely in the pile were the pictures that really mattered. All of them depicted the same pretty blond-haired girl Boomer had the unfortunate misery of having a crush on, which was so fucking stupid of him, but he had known that for years now.

He should have despised her or something, but that would have been too easy. It was so much more destructive and horrible to instead love something and have to pretend not to. He stuffed the pictures away.

There was a knock on his door and Butch entered without waiting for an answer.

"Hey."

"What?"

"You've been in here for a while." Butch observed. He had been in here for two long days actually.

"Where's Brick?"

"Out."

Boomer snorted rolling over to face the wall, "Of course."

Butch sighed walking over to the bed, "Come on, let's do something fun."

"Go away." He snapped back sinking further into the bed and closer to the wall.

"Nah." Butch said ripping the blankets off, "Come on."

"What would we even do, huh?" He groaned shrinking into a ball.

Something heavy landed on the mattress and he looked up to see two cases of unopened beer at the foot of his bed. Butch loomed over him with a cheeky smile.

"Something fun."

* * *

Butch stood at the very edge of the roof's ledge. He stood like a scarecrow as the wind whipped around him. His laughing matched the booming thunder as he teetered forwarded before catching himself. The rain had soaked him through.

He loved doing things like this, especially when he was wasted. He said it gave him a rush. He liked losing control on the off chance it made him slightly more vulnerable. What fun would it be, Butch would say, if I never even felt the pain? Boomer would bet anything right now that Butch was hoping he may fall and be so drunk that he would forget how to fly.

Boomer watched from the safety of one of the walls that had at one point made up the roof's access stairwell. Every once in a while, a spray of rain would hit him, but he mostly stayed dry watching Butch challenge the sky.

"I slept with her!" He finally admitted shouting over the wind to his brother.

"Wha?" Butch turned on his heels quickly to face him, which knocked him off his balance. Butch stumbled a bit backwards, as his mouth split into a wide, crazy smile, but he never completely fell, "Wha 'ou say?"

"I slept with her." He sighed looking down at the can in his hand.

Butch let his arms drop and smile fall while he took in his brother's quiet confession.

"Who's her?" He slurred finally and took a long sip of his drink.

Boomer realized that Butch was giving him an out because they both knew who "her" was drunk or not, but he was sick of keeping it to himself. He wondered vaguely if he was betraying his promise to her, but Butch had always _known_. Overly intense feelings were his specialty.

" _Her._ " He emphasized.

Butch turned back around and crushed the can in his hand tossing it over the edge and leaning far over the building to track its fall. The wind and rain continued to whip around him, but Boomer could hear him perfectly.

"Ah. 'er."

When he turned back around, he was smiling again. Jumping down he made his way over and settled in right next to Boomer, who passed him another beer.

He cracked it open and took another long sip before asking, "How was it?"

Boomer rolled his eyes, but chuckled nonetheless.

"Perfect." He answered breathing through his nose.

"Yea? Of course, it was. Isn'at what they are?'"

They both sat there quietly for a second. Butch swayed back and forth, like his body was following the storm. Or he was just that drunk. Boomer should have been that drunk.

Instead, he confessed more then he wanted to.

"She was. I was her first apparently and I tried my best to make it good, ya know? And afterwards, she…she said it had been a mistake. It had been the heat of the moment and we couldn't see each other again. That I was a…we were some of their worst enemies. But there was this moment Butch, I swear, when we were together and she was looking at me and it was like only her and me. That I mattered, that I was…" He trialed off and looked at his brother half expecting him to have passed out by now.

He hadn't. In fact, he was watching Boomer intently and for a moment looked incredibly sober. Maybe he was. Alcohol never lasted long when you had chemical X in your body.

"Loved?" Butch finished for him, but Boomer wouldn't answer that.

Butch let out a long sigh and wrapped an arm around his shoulder, "Yeah."

"I just thought that maybe…things could be different. For us. I can't keep…well, I want more then this." He gestured to the crumbling roof top, "How is any of this fair? Who decided we were the monsters?"

Butch didn't say anything back because it was a pointless, stupid question. No one got a fair choice in life. That was life.

"We should run away. Just get away from it all." He continued, but he knew they wouldn't.

They had already tried that time and time again, but they always wounded up back in this miserable town with its shitty cops, villains, mayors, and girls you were supposed to hate but didn't.

"Yeah. Where to?" Butch entertained, probably out of pity because his brother had been rejected by a girl he had no business hooking up with.

He thought for a moment, "No where blue."

Butch looked at the sky, "May be hard. Maybe England? I heard its always raining there. No sky."

Boomer shrugged, "Worth a try."

"I wonder what their underground is like? Who's even over there? That Big Ben guy right" Butch mused finishing off his can and leaning back.

"Who cares." He shrugged again sinking into his hood as another spray of water hit his face.

They both sat together watching the rain dance and he figured that would be the end of this conversation. Butch would get up, do something idiotic, Boomer would save his ass, and Brick would come home screaming. Textbook brother bonding.

"Maybe you should leave."

It had been the softest voice he think he had ever heard Butch use.

"What?" Boomer asked.

"Yeah, you've always been better then us. Boom you found _something_ and we…we're just holding you back."

"I mean," His brother continued, "I really doubt that goodie-goodie wouldn't take you back. She hardly seems like the type to just let anyone inside. I'll probably be dead by twenty-five, Brick's crazy, why can't one of us actually be something?"

Boomer laughed in disbelief. Butch, his brother _Butch_ , was the person telling him this.

But Butch looked deadly serious and Boomer quieted.

"What would I even do?" He asked entertaining the idea.

Butch shrugged in thought, "Go to school? If you're too dumb for that, then land a job? I don't know. How would I know?"

They both let out a long sigh and sunk further down the wall.

Boomer mused over the idea of getting out and moving on. If Butch was right, he'd drag her with him. They'd go somewhere warm, some beach, maybe in South America. She'd work with animals and he'd…farm? The little details didn't matter. All that mattered would be the warmth of the sun, the sand between his toes, and her sun-kissed body in a bikini. Or without a bikini—like he said little details didn't matter.

The thought made him smile. He was so immersed in his fantasy that when he opened his eyes it was almost shocking to see how the storm had continued raging above them. He looked over at Butch, who was the only guy Boomer knew that could fall asleep in something like this.

He sat and stared at his brother, who was passed out on the empty beer boxes and had pulled his soaked sweater up over his head as a blanket. It was a horrible makeshift bed, but not an unfamiliar one. With a huff he lifted his brother up and hoisted him over his shoulders. Butch didn't stir from the sudden movement and continued snoring.

Making it to the part of the apartment Butch had claimed as his own, Boomer tossed the drunkard down onto the pile of pillows and blankets Butch had deemed a bed. He stripped off the wet clothes and traced his brother's scars with his eyes. Briefly, he wondered who would do this for him if Boomer left, but he already knew no one would.

According to other people Butch was a monster; A monster who Boomer figured made a pretty good brother.

Well, most of the time.

He pushed the fringe from Butch's eyes and smiled when the sleeping figure mumbled something incoherent and kicked around until he was splayed out on his stomach. He'd be starving in the morning, so Boomer figured he'd make him something as a thank you for their night on the roof.

* * *

And when Butch woke up the next day he was pleasantly surprised to find a treasure trove of breakfast food that had magically been scraped together from their dismal stock holds.

"What's this?" He asked Brick already prepping a plate.

"Obviously, dumbass, its breakfast." Brick sneered checking through the cabinets.

Butch rolled his eyes and ignored the verbal abuse, "Yeah, no shit? Why?"

"I didn't make it. The idiot must of and," Brick huffed, slamming a door shut, "he used all the fucking food."

"Where you been the last few nights?"

"I've been out." Brick spit, "Why the fuck would he waste our food?"

If he was anybody else, Butch would have been annoyed at the vague answer, but frankly it was good enough for him. He really didn't care.

A few bites later, he finally replied, since Brick seemed to be waiting for a response, "Probably saying thanks."

"Why?"'

Butch did think though, with slight annoyance, that it was pretty hypocritical for the King-of-Vague-Answers to hate vague answers.

"I guess I gave him permission." Butch muttered and he again ignored the tug in his heart, like he had when he first saw the food. Guys like him didn't feel things like that.

"Permission?" Brick scowled, "Whatever. Where's that prick at anyway?"

Butch shrugged and continued stuffing his face. He honestly didn't know, but he probably wouldn't have told Brick if he knew anyway. He'd also keep the other news to himself for a bit longer as well, just on the off chance his vague memory of the night before was seriously wrong.

He was pretty sure though that this wasn't just a thank you. It was a goodbye.


End file.
